How to Decorate a Box

Exploring Ideas

Use fabric. With fabric, spray glue, scissors, a ruler, and a pencil, you can create a box that matches just about anything. If you have any scraps of fabric from leftover projects or even a favorite t-shirt that's wearing out (or you could spring for something fancy at a craft store), you're almost set. Cut your fabric to fit your box. Mark where the bottom of the box should be, spray glue the bottom, and set on the fabric. Cut a line along the sides of the long edge of the box. With your spray glue adhere that to the long side and the cut flaps to the short side. Repeat for the rest of the sides. And you're done! Unless you have a lid -- you can repeat the process so it matches or just leave it alone to accentuate the contrast.

Use buttons. If you want to get creative (think outside the box, if you will), use buttons to give your box some oomph and texture. Different-sized buttons of varying hues of a color family create a fancy, put-together look, but different shapes and different colors works, too. All you need is your grandma's stash of buttons and a hot glue gun! Be careful with the hot glue gun and use it sparingly -- you don't want your box to covered in little transparent blobs with a button here or there. If you don't like the base colour of your box, cover it! Use fabric, paper, or just color it with paint or markers.

Make paper roses. If you're feeling particularly creative (or romantic), paper roses are easier to make than you think. Just using paper would be fine, but with a few snips, the roses will spring up like weeds. Paper, scissors, and glue are the only materials you need. To start: Take a piece of paper and draw a spiral. Have the lines be far apart if you want larger roses (it'll be cute if you have different sizes). Cut out the spiral along the lines. Glue the edges of your spiral together, overlapping slightly. It creates a natural petal-like shape that looks just like a rose!

Use glitter, sequins, or other shiny things. With a bit of modge podge or rubber cement, your box can be practically blinding. You can totally do intricate designs and different colors, too. If you have a few hours to let it dry, this is a great method to create something really eye-catching. Let's say you want to do stripes in three colors. All you have to do is modge podge whatever area you want in your first color, apply your glitter/sequins, etc. and let dry. Then modge podge the second area, let dry, and repeat for the third! Try getting detailed with your designs. Loop de loops, anyone?

Get your decoupage on. If you have pretty much any type of paper and some white school glue, decoupage is the way to go. Imagine the box covered in pages of your favorite book, cute wallpaper, sheet music, or even ironed tissue paper or gift wrap? It'd practically be the focus of your entire room! With a 1:1 ratio of white glue to water, all you need to do is spread the paste on your box, apply a layer of your paper, and repeat until you have the look you want. If you like, top it off with a seal of varnish or lacquer. Tada!

Keep it basic with markers, ribbon, and stickers. You probably already thought of this one, huh? What do you have stashed in your craft drawer? In just a few minutes' time you could wrap it with ribbon, draw your next masterpiece, or slap on some stickers to make it uniquely you. For markers, you'll probably want to use the permanent kind. The kind kids use in schools can wash off and might wear off over time.

Use lace. To make your box more elegant, choose a textile like lace (maybe even a strand of pearls if you're feeling fancy!). You can either modge podge the entire thing, use that same decoupage paste, rubber cement, spray glue -- heck, pretty much anything that adheres without leaving a colored residue. Try overlapping lace designs to create some texture and intricacy. Try cutting your lace into shapes beforehand. Even if the entire box is covered in lace, designs on top can pop out, giving it dimension and pizazz.

Use contact paper. If you have a steady hand, contact paper may be the absolute easiest way in the world to jazz up even the most boring of boxes. It's backed by a sticky layer, meaning there's no gluey mess for you to deal with at all! Take a gander at your local home improvement store's shelving section. And maybe you could redesign the inside of your cabinets to boot! The only thing you have to careful about is overlap and bubbles. This method is similar with fabric: Center the box on the paper. Cut a line going outward from the long edge. Adhere the long, cut side to the long side of the box, folding the flaps around. Bring up the other sides, repeating the same motion.

Paint! Let your inner artist shine, you know? Acrylics will work best for most standard boxes. It's a flat surface and there's no pressure to have your box be the next Mona Lisa, so have at it! Even an abstract mashing of bold colors in no real design would be beautiful. Just make sure you paint only one side at a time. You don't want to prop up the box to see the blank side only to realize you've ruined what you just spent an hour working on!

Finding Inspiration

Decorate a gift box. A nice gift is great, but a nice gift with a personalized box is doubly thoughtful. Take your new ideas and put them to good use! It's a gift they might not be able to use forever, but the box they sure can.

Decorate a storage box. And as for that closet of yours -- imagine if it were something you actually wanted to look at and wasn't a complete eyesore. No more relegating yourself to being surrounded by plastic tubs. Get to sprucing up your closet already!

Decorate your box with newspaper. If you're lacking in the pretty paper department, newspaper can be surprisingly classy, especially if it's just black and white. Bust out the white glue and decoupage skills and redo all of your boxes -- they'll match but yet all be unique.

Crochet a box cover. If for some odd reason the texture of your box is wonky and glue and paints don't easily adhere, why not crochet a box cover? You're really just crocheting a larger box to put over this box, but it serves the same purpose. It can also protect any special boxes you have that you don't want to fade in the sunlight or get ruined by little hands.